


I'd Know

by whelvenwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Castiel in the Bunker, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4258404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelvenwings/pseuds/whelvenwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But I’d know, Dean thought to himself daily. I’d know. At first the words had been a simple way to tamp down the flickers among the kindling, but these days they felt more like trying to smother a roaring fire with a blanket that was already ablaze. Still, that same thought kept coming back to Dean, over and over and over.<br/>I’d know. I’d know.<br/>If I loved him, I’d know.<br/>----------------------------<br/>In which Dean doesn't know what he knows, until he knows that he always knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd Know

_But I’d know_ , Dean thought to himself daily.  _I’d know._ At first the words had been a simple way to tamp down the flickers among the kindling, but these days they felt more like trying to smother a roaring fire with a blanket that was already ablaze. Still, that same thought kept coming back to Dean, over and over and over.

_I’d know. I’d know._

_If I loved him, I’d know._

I mean, after all, it stood to reason, didn’t it? That’s the way love went in the movies. One look was all it took, just  _bam_ , eternal devotion after two seconds in the same room. Sure, they got to know each other and maybe they fought and maybe they even swore they’d never speak to each other again sometimes, but right from the start, it was just -  _obvious._ It was those two,  _obviously._  And Dean didn’t have that.

Didn’t he?

…No, he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.

_Didn’t_ he?

Well, surely the fact that he didn’t know meant - well, if he didn’t know if he knew, then he didn’t know, right?

It was normally at this point that Dean went and got himself a beer.

Except this night - this average evening after an ordinary day in a typical week - this night, things were different. Were they? Dean thought that maybe they were. He was sitting in the library, and Cas was sitting opposite him, reading the book that was lying open in front of him on the table. Dean was supposed to be reading, too, but somehow - damn, it was bizarre, but somehow he just couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the way Cas was leaning his head on one hand, squishing his cheek up beneath his palm. His eyes were softly-focused and Dean wondered if he were actually concentrating, or if his eyes were just moving over the page without really reading the words written there. His hair was a mess, he had a little scruff coming in, and on his bottom lip there was a thin cut, still healing after the last hunt. He looked a little tired, a little rumpled, a little -  _beautiful_.

The word leaped into Dean’s mind unbidden, and in that moment - like a flash of lightning - he realised exactly where he’d been wrong.

He loved Cas, and he knew. He  _knew._ God damn, he’d always known. He was a  _moron_.

“Cas,” Dean said quietly, and Cas looked up at him - with that familiar expression, the one that Dean knew so well, and yet… had never fully understood. Now that he looked more closely, however - now that he stopped looking over the page with soft-focused eyes and started actually reading what was in front of him - he understood that look absolutely perfectly.

“Yes?” Cas asked, when Dean continued to watch him for a moment in silence.

“Cas,” Dean said. “I love you. You know that, right?”

Cas’ whole face froze, as though in a single moment he’d completely lost the near-human level of control he had over his facial features. For a few seconds, Dean was looking at Cas as he’d been when they’d first met - his face flat, but his eyes as deep and infinite as the sky.

“I mean,” Dean said quickly when Cas hesitated, attempting to find some way to qualify or downplay what he’d just said, and coming up with nothing, “I, uh, I mean…”

“I love you,” Cas said, finally. “I love you, too.”

Dean let out the breath that he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He stood up and walked around the table, holding his hand out to Cas. At the last minute, just as Cas was about to take it, Dean pulled it back.

“You - you meant ‘love’ in the - in the kissing way, right?”

Cas’ face worked for a second, pushing his smile up into his eyes where it shone, radiant.

“Yes,” he said. “I meant it in the kissing way.”

Dean held his hand out again, and Cas took it.

“Good,” Dean said. “I think - I think we should do that now.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Cas said, using Dean’s hand to pull himself to his feet and stepping into his arms, then leaning forwards as smoothly and naturally as could be to press their lips together in a kiss. Behind Dean’s closed eyes, the world exploded.

_I know,_ Dean thought.

_I know._


End file.
